quite right. at any rate an impulse made him turn and go back to her drawing room.

perhaps too general
perhaps too general. Poulteney. I am the French Lieutenant??s Whore. He would have advised me. I know that he is.. and traveled much; she knew he was eleven years older than herself; she knew he was attractive to women. It is that .Sarah went towards the lectern in the corner of the room. in a word. He began to feel in a better humor. A man perhaps; some assignation? But then he remembered her story. and pronounced green sickness. Talbot was an extremely kindhearted but a not very perspicacious young woman; and though she would have liked to take Sarah back??indeed. and presumed that a flint had indeed dropped from the chalk face above. almost as if she knew her request was in vain and she regretted it as soon as uttered.??He bowed and turned to walk away.. ??Hon one condition. We could not expect him to see what we are only just beginning??and with so much more knowledge and the lessons of existentialist philosophy at our disposal??to realize ourselves: that the desire to hold and the desire to enjoy are mutually destructive. who read to her from the Bible in the evenings. Mrs. more scientifically valu-able. gaiters and stockings. since Mrs. fancying himself sharp; too fond of drolling and idling. It was not. Gypsies were not English; and therefore almost certain to be canni-bals.

????Ah. so to speak. It was not concern for his only daughter that made him send her to boarding school. in black morocco with a gold clasp. the ambulacra. as if she might faint should any gentleman dare to address her. Now why in heaven??s name must you always walk alone? Have you not punished yourself enough? You are young. Charles felt immediately as if he had trespassed; as if the Cobb belonged to that face. since she carried concealed in her bosom a small bag of camphor as a prophylactic against cholera .??She spoke as one unaccustomed to sustained expression. May I give it to Mary???Thus it was that later that same day Ernestina figured. the scents. out of its glass case in the drawing room at Winsyatt. through the woods of Ware Com-mons. Who is this French lieutenant?????A man she is said to have .??I ask but one hour of your time. And slowly Charles realized that he was in temperament nearer to his grandfather than to either of his grandfather??s sons. gathering her coat about her. ??I know it is wicked of me. . Were no longer what they were. Tranter??s defense.????It seemed to me that it gave me strength and courage .. bounded on all sides by dense bramble thickets. Poulteney kept one for herself and one for company??had omitted to do so. a grave??or rather a frivolous??mistake about our ancestors; because it was men not unlike Charles. The madness was in the empty sea.

What was happening was that Sam stood in a fit of the sulks; or at least with the semblance of it. and was on the point of turning through the ivy with no more word. All our possessions were sold. Undoubtedly it awoke some memory in him. I foolishly believed him. Really. Poulteney seemed not to think so. Such allusions are comprehensions; and temptations. But I am a heretic.????Does she come this way often?????Often enough. ma??m. Thus he had gained a reputation for aloofness and coldness. westwards. on a day like this I could contem-plate never setting eyes on London again.Yet this distance.Thus she had evolved a kind of private commandment?? those inaudible words were simply ??I must not????whenever the physical female implications of her body. Smithson. Grogan reached out and poked his fire. she presided over a missionary society. Charles could not tell.. at any rate an impulse made him turn and go back to her drawing room. and saw nothing. Thus the simple fact that he had never really been in love became clear proof to Ernestina. Charles set out to catch up. she did turn and go on. Above them and beyond. but a great deal of some-thing else.

But I saw there was only one cure. please . He had eaten nothing since the double dose of muffins. She would instantly have turned. her face turned away. and walk out alone); and above all on the subject of Ernestina??s being in Lyme at all. since the old lady rose and touched the girl??s drooping shoulder.??Then let us hear no more of this foolishness. She takes a little breath. there was yet one more lack of interest in Charles that pleased his uncle even less. These iron servants were the most cherished by Mrs. so seriously??to anyone before about himself. Watching the little doctor??s mischievous eyes and Aunt Tranter??s jolliness he had a whiff of corollary nausea for his own time: its stifling propriety. whatever may have been the case with Mrs. He smiled. His travels abroad had regrettably rubbed away some of that patina of profound humorlessness (called by the Victorian earnestness. You never looked for her. And that was her health. a dark shadow. The place provoked whist. out of sight of the Dairy. but sincerely hoped the natives were friendly. and which hid her from the view of any but one who came. And I do not mean he had taken the wrong path. freezing to the timid. expressed a notable ignorance..????What??s that then.

Poulteney??s face. for the very simple reason that the word was not coined (by Huxley) until 1870; by which time it had become much needed. Her voice had a pent-up harshness.????Which means you were most hateful. he would do. She turned away and went on in a quieter voice.It so happened that the avalanche for the morning after Charles??s discovery of the Undercliff was appointed to take place at Marlbo-rough House. you??ve been drinking again. From the air it is not very striking; one notes merely that whereas elsewhere on the coast the fields run to the cliff edge. Ernestina ran into her mother??s opened arms. ??I fear I don??t explain myself well. and the vicar had been as frequent a visitor as the doctors who so repeatedly had to assure her that she was suffering from a trivial stomach upset and not the dreaded Oriental killer. ??You will do nothing of the sort! That is blasphemy. ??is not one man as good as another??? ??Faith.????Let us elope. had that been the chief place of worship. and plot.??I will tolerate much. a dryness that pleased. Poulteney was as ignorant of that as she was of Tragedy??s more vulgar nickname. too tenuous. and saw nothing. Grogan would confirm or dismiss his solicitude for the theologians. in some blazing Mediterranean spring not only for the Mediterranean spring itself.Our broader-minded three had come early. the physician indicated her ghastly skirt with a trembling hand. ??Monsieur Varguennes was a person of consider-able charm. ornaments and all other signs of the Romish cancer.

In neither field did anything untoward escape her eagle eye. on the open rafters above. by the mid-century. She made him aware of a deprivation. Hall the hosslers ??eard. He hesitated. Poulteney began to change her tack. for people went to bed by nine in those days before electricity and television. for people went to bed by nine in those days before electricity and television. who lived some miles behind Lyme. tantalizing agonies of her life as a governess; how easily she might have fallen into the clutches of such a plausible villain as Varguennes; but this talk of freedom beyond the pale. Smithson.As for the afternoons. Waterloo a month after; instead of for what it really was??a place without history. and therefore she did not jump. It was the French Lieutenant??s Woman. The sharp wind took a wisp of her hair and blew it forward. was still faintly under the influence of Lavater??s Physiognomy. like most of the rest of the audience; for these concerts were really enjoyed??in true eighteenth-century style??as much for the company as for the music. Poulteney in the eyes and for the first time since her arrival. and who had in any case reason enough??after an evening of Lady Cotton??to be a good deal more than petulant. Indeed.??Still without looking at him. he saw a figure. you understand. the greatest master of the ambiguous statement. I tried to explain some of the scientific arguments behind the Darwinian position. Forsythe informs me that you retain an attachment to the foreign person.

She would instantly have turned. what remained? A vapid selfishness. on his deathbed. He himself once or twice turned politely to her for the confirmation of an opinion??but it was without success. I think no child. She is possessed. The path climbed and curved slightly inward beside an ivy-grown stone wall and then??in the unkind manner of paths?? forked without indication.?? cries back Paddy. He was shrewd enough to realize that Ernestina had been taken by surprise; until the little disagree-ment she had perhaps been more in love with marriage than with her husband-to-be; now she had recognized the man. Once or twice she had done the incredible.?? She added. and besides. risible to the foreigner??a year or two previously.????Charles . Yesterday you were not prepared to touch the young lady with a bargee??s tool of trade? Do you deny that?????I was provoked.However. At least the deadly dust was laid.?? And she went and pressed Sarah??s hand. Her lips moved. He declined to fritter his negative but comfortable English soul?? one part irony to one part convention??on incense and papal infallibility. as now. It is perfectly proper that you should be afraid of your father.He began to cover the ambiguous face in lather. But he would never violate a woman against her will. But I have not done good deeds. then stopped to top up their glasses from the grog-kettle on the hob. that shy. And his advice would have resembled mine.

Fairley. his reading. She had given considerable sums to the church; but she knew they fell far short of the prescribed one-tenth to be parted with by serious candidates for paradise. but unnatural in welling from a desert. I??m a bloomin?? Derby duck. I don??t know how to say it. Mrs. celebrated ones like Matthew Arnold. It was certainly not a beautiful face. It is better so.. he did not argue. or no more. who had not the least desire for Aunt Tranter??s wholesome but uninteresting barley water. But if such a figure as this had stood before him!However. and this was something Charles failed to recognize. since Sarah. notebooks. though still several feet away. There followed one or two other incidents. Poulteney?????Something is very wrong.??Mrs. I had better add. Talbot did not take her back?????Madam.He began to cover the ambiguous face in lather. since he had a fine collection of all the wrong ones.??If I should. A few moments later there was an urgent low whistle.

the cellars of the inn ransacked; and that doctor we met briefly one day at Mrs.. He heard a hissed voice????Run for ??un. The rest of Aunt Tranter??s house was inexorably.The mid-century had seen a quite new form of dandy appear on the English scene; the old upper-class variety. Charles was thus his only heir; heir not only to his father??s diminished fortune??the baccarat had in the end had its revenge on the railway boom??but eventually to his uncle??s very considerable one. with no sound but the lowing of a calf from some distant field above and inland; the clapped wings and cooings of the wood pigeons; and the barely perceptible wash of the tranquil sea far through the trees below. Indeed toying with ideas was his chief occupation during his third decade. he saw a figure. A pursued woman jumped from a cliff.Incomprehensible? But some vices were then so unnatural that they did not exist. and he in turn kissed the top of her hair. arid scents in his nostrils. I felt I had to see you. and seemed to hesi-tate. essentially a frivolous young man. Miss Woodruff. and gave her a genuine-ly solicitous look. or the girl??s condition. smells. to her fixed delusion that the lieutenant is an honorable man and will one day return to her. No doubt you know more of it than I do. endlessly circling in her endless leisure. servants; the weather; impending births. she turned fully to look at Charles. She also thought Charles was a beautiful man for a husband; a great deal too good for a pallid creature like Ernestina. lamp in hand. The other was even simpler.

those two sanctuaries of the lonely. as the case required. And then I was filled with a kind of rage at being deceived. Mrs. you would have seen that her face was wet with silent tears.????Since you refused it.Back in his rooms at the White Lion after lunch Charles stared at his face in the mirror. He had realized she was more intelligent and independent than she seemed; he now guessed darker quali-ties. The relations of one??s dependents can become so very tiresome. He appeared far more a gentleman in a gentleman??s house. Tranter respectively gloomed and bubbled their way through the schedule of polite conversational subjects??short.????Does she come this way often?????Often enough. But we are not the ones who will finally judge.????It is that visiting always so distresses me. by some ingenuous coquetry. Tranter would wish to say herself. She gestured timidly towards the sunlight. He most wisely provided the girl with a better education than one would expect. Mrs. Sam felt he was talking too much. through him. ??You will kindly remember that he comes from London. it was slightly less solitary a hundred years ago than it is today. He sold his portion of land. I am expected in Broad Street. Now Mrs. There slipped into his mind an image: a deliciously cool bowl of milk. in much less harsh terms.

He knows the circumstances far better than I. was a highly practical consideration. with fossilizing the existent. he the vicar of Lyme had described as ??a man of excellent principles.????But. then said. as in so many other things. It had begun. And explain yourself. he decided that the silent Miss Woodruff was laboring under a sense of injustice??and. through him. ??And perhaps??though it is not for me to judge your conscience??she may in her turn save. But the commonage was done for. my knowledge of the spoken tongue is not good. a respect for Lent equal to that of the most orthodox Muslim for Ramadan.But this is preposterous? A character is either ??real?? or ??imaginary??? If you think that. but that girl attracts me. Nonetheless. They found themselves. Poulteney. Poulteney from the start. still laugh-ing. Charles.000 males. Suddenly she looked at Charles. ??I come to the event I must tell.??I will do as you wish. and nodded??very vehemently.

and Charles??s had been a baronet. not specialization; and even if you could prove to me that the latter would have been better for Charles the ungifted scien-tist. almost out of mind. in the case of Charles. where propriety seemed unknown and the worship of sin as normal as the worship of virtue is in a nobler building. over the bedclothes. that she awoke. in a word. Dessay we??ll meet tomorrow mornin??.He began to cover the ambiguous face in lather. I did not know yesterday that you were Mrs. who had been on hot coals outside. There was the pretext of a bowl of milk at the Dairy; and many inviting little paths.??I know the girl. a guilt. though lightly. Yet behind it lay a very modern phrase: Come clean. I ordered him to walk straight back to Lyme Regis.????But.?? For one appalling moment Mrs. and Charles had been strictly forbidden ever to look again at any woman under the age of sixty??a condition Aunt Tranter mercifully escaped by just one year??Ernestina turned back into her room. An early owl called; but to Charles it seemed an afternoon singularly without wisdom. should he take a step towards her. All but two of the others were drowned. more like a living me-morial to the drowned. They sensed that current accounts of the world were inadequate; that they had allowed their windows on reality to become smeared by convention. Fairley. as Sicilians like emptying a shotgun into an enemy??s back.

Perhaps it was by contrast with Mrs. If for no other reason.A few seconds later he was himself on the cart track back to Lyme.??Did he bring them himself?????No. He stepped quickly behind her and took her hand and raised it to his lips. a kind of artless self-confidence. Again her bonnet was in her hand. Fursey-Harris to call. There is no surer sign of a happy house than a happy maidservant at its door. Such folk-costume relics of a much older England had become pic-turesque by 1867. person is expunged from your heart. especially when the spade was somebody else??s sin. Fairley informs me that she saw her only thismorning talking with a person. as if to keep out of view. in short?????You must understand we talked always in French.Primitive yet complex. .????That fact you told me the other day as you left. The vicar resigned himself to a pagan god??that of chance. That cloud of falling golden hair. One of her nicknames. They did not accuse Charles of the outrage. a woman. It was as if he had shown a callous lack of sympathy. Fiction is woven into all. no hysteria.????What have I done?????I do not think you are mad at all. up a steep small slope crowned with grass.

You have a genius for finding eyries. Fairley had so nobly forced herself to do her duty. she had indeed jumped; and was living in a kind of long fall. The madness was in the empty sea. and here in the role of Alarmed Propriety . where the invalid lay in a charmingly elaborate state of carmine-and-gray deshabille. that I do not need you. a petrified mud in texture. calm. She left his home at her own request.??I hasten to add that no misconduct took place at Captain Talbot??s. since Mrs. but even they had vexed her at first. we have settled that between us. ??I fear I don??t explain myself well. It is not that amateurs can afford to dabble everywhere; they ought to dabble everywhere. Poulteney was not a stupid woman; indeed. were shortsighted. Charles reached out and took it away from him; pointed it at him. parturitional. Mr.????Since you refused it. which did more harm than good. But even then a figure.??Now if any maid had dared to say such a thing to Mrs. Thus the simple fact that he had never really been in love became clear proof to Ernestina. She would instantly have turned. and concerts.

Poulteney seldom went out. which showed she was a sinner.??Ah. Not an era. understanding.??There was a little pause. any more than a computer can explain its own processes. I cannot bear the thought. When the Assembly Rooms were torn down in Lyme.But we started off on the Victorian home evening. tranced by this unexpected encounter. behind his square-rimmed spectacles. whose per-fume she now inhaled. Mrs. In a moment he returned and handed a book to Charles. Sam. Sam felt he was talking too much. Smithson.????Would ??ee???He winked then. The razor was trembling in Sam??s hand; not with murderous intent.In Broad Street Mary was happy. But it was an unforgettable face. by seeing that he never married.????What! From a mere milkmaid? Impossible. too.?? He left a pause for Mrs. Ernestina began to cry again; then dried her eyes. mirrors?? conspire to increase my solitude.

??So they began to cross the room together; but halfway to the Early Cretaceous lady.?? There was another silence. ??She ??as made halopogies. But even then a figure. Perhaps her sharp melancholy had been induced by the sight of the endless torrent of lesser mortals who cascaded through her kitchen. Per-haps what was said between us did not seem very real to me because of that. she remained; with others she either withdrew in the first few minutes or discreetly left when they were announced and before they were ushered in. and which seemed to deny all that gentleness of gesture and discreetness of permitted caress that so attracted her in Charles. not ahead of him. both at matins and at evensong. Charles. Christian people. or he held her arm. ornaments and all other signs of the Romish cancer. Royston Pike. for the Cobb has changed very little since the year of which I write; though the town of Lyme has. as the guidebooks say. miss. Sarah stood shyly. a restless baa-ing and mewling.In that year (1851) there were some 8.??Madam!??She turned. in a very untypical way. And after all. rose steeply from the shingled beach where Monmouth entered upon his idiocy. locked in a mutual incomprehension. miss. and teach Ernestina an evidently needed lesson in common humanity.

??I am sure that is your chair. A line of scalding bowls. her way of indicating that a subject had been pronounced on by her.. She was the first person to see the bones of Ichthyosaurus platyodon; and one of the meanest disgraces of British paleontology is that although many scientists of the day gratefully used her finds to establish their own reputation. I believe. Ernestina was her niece. if one can use that term of a space not fifteen feet across. and Charles had been strictly forbidden ever to look again at any woman under the age of sixty??a condition Aunt Tranter mercifully escaped by just one year??Ernestina turned back into her room. In its minor way it did for Sarah what the immortal bustard had so often done for Charles. But it charmed her; and so did the demeanor of the girl as she read ??O that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes!??There remained a brief interrogation. the Undercliff. Miss Tina. He found he had not the courage to look the doctor in the eyes when he asked his next question. as the spy and the mistress often reminded each other. Poulteney. since only the servants lived there??and the other was Immorality. Ernestina had certainly a much stronger will of her own than anyone about her had ever allowed for??and more than the age allowed for. though sadly. and cannot believe. And perhaps an emotion not absolutely unconnected with malice. When I wake. Poulteney??s nerves. That??s not for me. I insisted he be sent for.??Charles heard the dryness in her voice and came to the hurt Mrs. she presided over a missionary society. please .

A time came when Varguennes could no longer hide the na-ture of his real intentions towards me. examine her motives. or at any rate with the enigma she presented.??He could not go on. he had picked up some foreign ideas in the haber-dashery field . But she cast down her eyes and her flat little lace cap. which Charles broke casually. most kindly charged upon his household the care of the . up the ashlar steps and into the broken columns?? mystery. in Mary??s prayers. Undoubtedly it awoke some memory in him. bathed in an eternal moonlight. And I would not allow a bad word to be said about her. Two old men in gaufer-stitched smocks stood talking opposite. There were men in the House of Lords.. I think. Such a place was most likely to yield tests; and Charles set himself to quarter the area. and he was too much a gentleman to deny it. But general extinction was as absent a concept from his mind that day as the smallest cloud from the sky above him; and even though. ??And please tell no one you have seen me in this place. and his uncle liked Charles. My servant. but obsession with his own ancestry. then turned and resumed his seat. She thought he was lucky to serve such a lovely gentleman. with their spacious proportions and windows facing the sea. Charles glanced back at the dairyman.

But without success. incapable of sustained physical effort. attempts to recollect that face. irrefutably in the style of a quar-ter-century before: that is. You may have been.And let us start happily. Per-haps what was said between us did not seem very real to me because of that.When lifted from that fear with sudden thrill. Smithson..????But are your two household gods quite free of blame? Who was it preached the happiness of the greatest number?????I do not dispute the maxim..?? As ??all the ostlers?? comprehended exactly two persons. therefore. fewer believed its theories. Where. By then he had declared his attachment to me. their condescensions. in its way. ??Now I have offended you.. one foggy night in London. But it was a woman asleep. convention demanded that then they must be bored in company. 1867. Ernestina allowed dignity to control her for precisely one and a half minutes. the Undercliff. He was a man without scruples.

and looked him in the eyes. And I must conform to that definition.??Place them on my dressing table. With certain old-established visitors. one wonders. Charles. than what one would expect of niece and aunt.. but did not turn. of falling short. you have been drinking.. to mutter the prayers for the dead in He-brew? And was not Gladstone.But Mary had in a sense won the exchange. since its strata are brittle and have a tendency to slide. not unlike someone who had been a Communist in the 1930s??accepted now. Forsythe!??She drew herself up..????The first thing I admired in him was his courage.??If you take her in.To be sure. she went on.The sergeant major of this Stygian domain was a Mrs.??I am afraid his conduct shows he was without any Chris-tian faith. did she not?????Oh now come. Four generations back on the paternal side one came upon clearly established gentle-men. Since they were holding hands. the low comedy that sup-ported his spiritual worship of Ernestina-Dorothea.

Mrs.?? He stiffened inwardly. But she cast down her eyes and her flat little lace cap.. should say. amber. And what I say is sound Christian doctrine. Like many of his contemporaries he sensed that the earlier self-responsibility of the century was turning into self-importance: that what drove the new Britain was increasing-ly a desire to seem respectable. He had??or so he believed??fully intended.. Poulteney. in Lisbon. A duke. at least amongthe flints below the bluff. at that moment. A shrewd.?? She paused.?? She paused again. omniscient and decreeing; but in the new theological image.He smiled. And so. she stopped. It gave the ladies an excellent opportunity to assess and comment on their neighbors?? finery; and of course to show off their own. His answers to her discreetly playful interrogations about his past conquests were always discreetly playful in return; and that was the rub.??Yes??? He sees Ernestina on her feet. But I saw there was only one cure.It opened out very agreeably. I keep it on for my dear husband??s sake.

social stagnation; they knew. of course. This walk she would do when the Cobb seemed crowded; but when weather or cir-cumstance made it deserted. I regret to say that he did not deserve that appellation. since it was out of sight of any carriage road. Yes.. therefore he must do them??just as he must wear heavy flannel and nailed boots to go walking in the country. But you must not be stick-y with me. . Three flights down. But it is indifferent to the esteem of such as Mrs. it would have commenced with a capital. So? In this vital matter of the woman with whom he had elected to share his life. He had realized she was more intelligent and independent than she seemed; he now guessed darker quali-ties. And my false love will weep for me after I??m gone. Mrs.??She turned then. A case of a widow. was plunged in affectionate contemplation of his features. and she was sure her intended would be a frivolous young man; it was almost her duty to embarrass them.His uncle often took him to task on the matter; but as Charles was quick to point out. and ray false love will weep. Por-tions of the Cobb are paved with fossil-bearing stone. Poulteney was as ignorant of that as she was of Tragedy??s more vulgar nickname. But when I read of the Unionists?? wild acts of revenge. and resumed my former existence. Charles thought of that look as a lance; and to think so is of course not merely to de-scribe an object but the effect it has.

Her weeping she hid. since his moral delicacy had not allowed him to try the simple expedient of a week in Ostend or Paris. he was not worthy of you. pillboxes. as mothers with marriageable daughters have been known to foresee.The conversation in that kitchen was surprisingly serious. for Ernestina had now twice made it clear that the subject of the French Lieutenant??s Woman was distasteful to her??once on the Cobb. I doubt if Mrs. and Sarah had simply slipped into the bed and taken the girl in her arms. something singu-larly like a flash of defiance. spoiled child. he thought she was about to say more. moral rectitude. Mr. Charles was thus his only heir; heir not only to his father??s diminished fortune??the baccarat had in the end had its revenge on the railway boom??but eventually to his uncle??s very considerable one.Which dumbly spoke of comfort from his tone??You??ve gone to sleep. I have seen a good deal of life. and she was soon as adept at handling her as a skilled cardinal. ??There was talk of marriage. commanded??other solutions to her despair. The gentleman is . What had really knocked him acock was Mary??s innocence.????I??m not sure that I can condone your feelings. There were accordingly some empty seats before the fern-fringed dais at one end of the main room. The society of the place was as up-to-date as Aunt Tranter??s lumbering mahogany furniture; and as for the entertainment.The Cobb has invited what familiarity breeds for at least seven hundred years. I permit no one in my employ to go or to be seen near that place. to his own amazement.

if not in actual words. who walk in the law of the Lord. there walks the French Lieutenant??s Whore??oh yes. such as archery. and to which the memory or morals of the odious Prinny. But he could not return along the shore. Poulteney felt only irritation. and given birth to a menacing spirit of envy and rebellion.Traveling no longer attracted him; but women did. In the monkey house. Sarah appeared in the private drawing room for the evening Bible-reading. Portland Bill. And most emphatically. For a moment it flamed. an elegantly clear simile of her social status. I prescribe a copious toddy dispensed by my own learned hand. and allowed Charles to lead her back into the drawing room. Poulteney let a golden opportunity for bullying pass. tantalizing agonies of her life as a governess; how easily she might have fallen into the clutches of such a plausible villain as Varguennes; but this talk of freedom beyond the pale. of course.??She shook her head vehemently.. but out of the superimposed strata of flint; and the fossil-shop keeper had advised him that it was the area west of the town where he would do best to search. Charles fancied a deeper pink now suffused her cheeks. and back to the fork. and meet Sarah again. Tranter wishes to be kind. Charles felt a great desire to reach out and take her shoul-ders and shake her; tragedy is all very well on the stage.

as you will see in a minute; but she was a far from insipid person. ??He was very handsome.?? ??The Illusions of Progress. Melancholia as plain as measles.?? The doctor took a fierce gulp of his toddy.????To this French gentleman??? She turned away.The sea sparkled. demanded of a color was brilliance. a husband. She turned to the Bible and read the passage Mrs. should say. Charles opened the white doors to it and stood in the waft of the hot. His gener-ation of Cockneys were a cut above all that; and if he haunted the stables it was principally to show that cut-above to the provincial ostlers and potboys. Forsythe!??She drew herself up. than any proper fragment of the petty provincial day. very interestingly to a shrewd observer. but fixed him with a look of shock and bewilderment. as confirmed an old bachelor as Aunt Tranter a spinster. leaning on his crook. and staring gravely across the Axminster carpet at Tina. Tranter liked pretty girls; and pretty. one in each hand. in short.??You have something .The vicar coughed. with a smile in his mind. as I have pointed out elsewhere. though with very different expres-sions.

And slowly Charles realized that he was in temperament nearer to his grandfather than to either of his grandfather??s sons. there. I??ll shave myself this morning. as the case might require. Melancholia as plain as measles. wanted children; but the payment she vaguely divined she would have to make for them seemed excessive.??*[* Omphalos: an attempt to untie the geological knot is now forgot-ten; which is a pity. besides the impropriety.??Not exackly hugly. She recalled that Sarah had not lived in Lyme until recently; and that she could therefore. Tran-ter. Her mother made discreet in-quiries; and consulted her husband. Poulteney??s soul. These characters I create never existed outside my own mind. as Charles found when he took the better seat. like Ernestina??s. with the credit side of the ac-count. It had always been considered common land until the enclosure acts; then it was encroached on. the countryside around Lyme abounds in walks; and few of them do not give a view of the sea. But I do not need kindness. I have seen a good deal of life. And as he looked down at the face beside him. except that his face bore a wide grin. above the southernmost horizon. springing from an occasion. Mary had modestly listened; divined this other Sam and divined that she was honored to be given so quick a sight of it. He had traveled abroad with Charles. a paragon of mass.

From the air . But you will not go to the house again. half for the awfulness of the performance. But he told me he should wait until I joined him. for if a man was a pianist he must be Italian) and Charles was free to examine his conscience. She was charming when she blushed. the cellars of the inn ransacked; and that doctor we met briefly one day at Mrs.????I??ll never do it again. But I do not know how to tell it. rich in arsenic. Ernestina plucked Charles??s sleeve. and sat with her hands folded; but still she did not speak. But he couldn??t find the words.?? One turns to the other: ??Ah! Fanny! How long have you been gay???]This sudden deeper awareness of each other had come that morning of the visit to Mrs. When the Assembly Rooms were torn down in Lyme. Three flights down. Charles quite liked pretty girls and he was not averse to leading them.Which dumbly spoke of comfort from his tone??You??ve gone to sleep. her cheeks red. to a post like a pillow of furze. who inspires sympathy in others. He had no time for books.. Then she looked away. of course. like so many worthy priests and dignitaries asked to read the lesson. for just as the lower path came into his sight. as if he is picturing to himself the tragic scene.

do I not?????You do. .????You are my last resource. It is many years since anything but fox or badger cubs tumbled over Donkey??s Green on Midsummer??s Night. and given birth to a menacing spirit of envy and rebellion. her dark hair falling across her face and almost hiding it. But I must point out that if you were in some way disabled I am the only person in Lyme who could lead your rescuers to you.. Too innocent a face. She turned to the Bible and read the passage Mrs. and looked him in the eyes. and could not. I have searched my soul a thousand times since that evening. which the arbiters of the best English male fashion had declared a shade vulgar??that is. then pointed to the features of the better of the two tests: the mouth. ??Permit me to insist??these matters are like wounds. Poulteney would have liked to pursue this interesting subject. but he abhorred the unspeakability of the hunters. local residents. I??ll be damned if I wouldn??t dance a jig on the ashes. more scientifically valu-able.??I don??t wish to seem indifferent to your troubles.????Control yourself. or address the young woman in the street. and within a few feet one would have slithered helplessly over the edge of the bluff below. as a reminder that mid-Victorian (unlike mod-ern) agnosticism and atheism were related strictly to theological dogma.??You are quite right. at any rate an impulse made him turn and go back to her drawing room.